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PRESS KIT  

     

   

     

Directed by Dexter Fletcher

Starring Jane Horrocks, Peter Mullan, George Mackay, Antonia Thomas, Kevin Guthrie and Freya Mayor

Release date: 22 May, 2014 Rating: TBC

Running Time: 100 minutes

For more information contact Natalie Motto at Entertainment One: 02) 8303 3800 or email: NMotto@entonegroup.com

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While  I’m  worth  my  room  on  this  Earth,  

I  will  be  with  you,  

While  the  Chief  puts  sunshine  on  Leith,  

I’ll  thank  him  for  his  work,  

And  your  birth  and  my  birth  

–  ‘SUNSHINE  ON  LEITH’,  

THE  PROCLAIMERS  

 

SYNOPSIS

Home is where the heart is for best pals Davy (George Mackay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie). Returning from duty in Afghanistan to their lifelong residence in Leith, just outside Edinburgh, the lads kindle romances old and new: Ally with Davy’s sister Liz (Freya Mavor), and Davy with Yvonne (Antonia Thomas), his little sis’s best friend from work. Meanwhile, their parents Rab (Peter Mullan) and Jean (Jane Horrocks) are busy planning their 25th wedding anniversary. Everything’s going swimmingly, until a revelation from Rab’s past threatens to tear the family and all three couples apart. Dexter Fletcher directs Sunshine on Leith; a jubilant, heartfelt musical about the power of home, the hearth, family and love, adapted from the acclaimed stage musical by Stephen Greenhorn and featuring the euphoric music of The Proclaimers.

Sunshine on Leith was produced by Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich for DNA Films, and Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker for Black Camel Pictures. Dexter Fletcher directs from a script by Stephen Greenhorn. The Director of Photography is George Richmond. The Musical Director is Paul Englishby. The film stars Peter Mullan, Jane Horrocks, George Mackay, Freya Mavor, Kevin Guthrie, Antonia Thomas and Jason Flemyng.

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But I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more,

Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door

– ‘I’M GONNA BE (500 MILES)’

THE PRODUCTION: FROM STAGE TO SCREEN

Sunshine On Leith constructs a fictional feel-good story around the songs of Scottish band The Proclaimers. In the same way that MAMMA MIA! bears no relation to the lives of the four members of Swedish pop quartet ABBA, Sunshine On Leith carries no biographical links to Charlie and Craig Reid, the identical twin brothers who form The Proclaimers. They unveiled their first record, This Is The Story, in 1987, and have gone on to release a further eight studio albums, including Sunshine On Leith in 1988, which spawned their most well-known hit, the instantly recognisable and insanely catchy ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’. But it took two decades for someone to realise that the band’s songs shouldn’t just be performed in rock venues.

“Sunshine On Leith happened, like all the best things, out of a bottle of whisky,” says screenwriter Stephen Greenhorn. In 2005, Greenhorn was trying to drum up an idea for a Scottish musical to workshop and develop with his friend James Brining, Artistic Director of the Dundee Repertory Theatre. Despite their best efforts, however, the pair’s brainstorming had drawn blanks.

“One night I was getting drunk and listening to the first Proclaimers album, This Is The Story,” Greenhorn recalls. “Halfway through the album, they stop playing and start to talk. I thought, ‘This sounds like it’s from a musical’ and started thinking about all The Proclaimers’ songs I knew and how they all could be from a musical. I wrote down ‘the Proclaimers musical’ on the back of an envelope and went to bed. The next morning, I’d completely forgotten about it until I saw the envelope.”

After they’d secured the permission of the Reid brothers and their longtime manager Kenny Macdonald, Greenhorn spent the next two years developing the show alongside Brining and several actors at Dundee Rep. When the first production was finally mounted in 2007, Sunshine on Leith acquired a spectacular momentum that would eventually carry it to the big screen. “Thank god I wrote the idea down!” laughs the writer.

The original run in Scotland was a sell-out, prompting two further tours for the crowd-pleasing, heart-warming, barnstorming stage musical adored by audiences and critics alike. The Guardian branded it the best British musical since Blood Brothers and “a show worth walking 500 miles for, if not 500 more”, in reference to The Proclaimers’ iconic hit.

Although they gave their blessing to Sunshine on Leith, Craig and Charlie Reid had no creative input into the musical itself. When they found a window in their hectic touring schedule to

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eventually go see it, they admit to feeling blown away by the experience. “I thought it was fantastic,” recalls Charlie. “It was quite surreal and moving listening to your own stuff sung back at you by actors. You could feel the tears rolling down a few times.”

“I think the secret is that Stephen really listened to the lyrics,” adds Craig. “He told the story through not just what he felt about what the lyrics said, but something beyond that. He’s an artist himself. What he’s done is magical.”

The Proclaimers have always told stories with their songs, which is what makes them ideally suited to a musical. It didn’t take the media to dub Sunshine on Leith ‘MacMamma Mia’ for others to spot its filmic potential, among them Glasgow-based producer Arabella Page Croft, who runs Black Camel Pictures with her husband Kieran Parker. “The show was very loved in Scotland,” she notes. “We faced some competition to get the rights.”

Seeking to capture any stage musical’s spirit, in particular one that delivers the sense of uplift and joy to audiences that Sunshine on Leith does, is an especially daunting challenge. Cinema screens and DVD bargain bins have been littered with the detritus of failed attempts in recent times, because a musical can never just be about catchy tunes, it’s got to start with the story and the characters. In this regard, Page Croft wisely recognised that keeping Greenhorn on board was of paramount importance to any successful adaptation, and the writer went through three drafts of a script that moved Sunshine on Leith from its heightened theatrical origins into a more naturalistic cinematic universe.

“The biggest task was taking those characters and putting them in a recognisable world for a film audience,” explains Greenhorn. “It was about making the leap into a gritty, dirt-under-the-fingernails experience of life, Leith and Edinburgh.”

As much as she was able to move the script forward in terms of storytelling and financing, however, Page Croft still couldn’t help wondering at times “how I was going to sell this funny, idiosyncratic Scottish musical that means so much to all of us to the rest of the world”. Enter Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich of DNA Films, producers of some of the most acclaimed British films of recent years, including 28 Days Later, The Last King Of Scotland and Never Let Me Go. DNA delivered the rocket-fuel injection Sunshine on Leith needed. “It felt like we were catching that wave again for a second time,” observes Greenhorn.

Like Page Croft, Macdonald had also been alerted to the stage show by a friend and when he found out that she owned the rights and was already developing a script, he quickly got in touch. “She sent me the script and it had what I was looking for, which was heart,” says Glasgow-born Macdonald, adding “I’ve always wanted to do a musical. The fact that it was from Scotland made it all the more appealing.”

Not everyone in Macdonald’s circle was as smitten as he was by the notion of a Scottish musical featuring music by The Proclaimers. “That includes my wife!” he laughs. His DNA Films partner was another early sceptic.

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“I thought it was going to be the story of fantastic twin musicians making it on the Scottish music scene, which sounded a little bit niche,” admits Reich. “But when I read the script, I was completely captivated by the story and the characters. The second time I read it, I had my web browser open to YouTube and played all the tracks at the point they came in the story. It was so seamless that I thought The Proclaimers must have written some of the songs specifically for the musical. I was amazed to discover that Stephen had woven it all together from pre-existing tracks.”

DNA approached their first foray into musicals with serious intent. In particular, Macdonald was keen that the narrative, despite embracing universal themes, be anchored as locally as possible in its Leith setting. He asked Greenhorn to do another draft taking out any elements that had been added in to appeal to an international audience. For instance, rather than support Scotland’s national football team, the characters are now passionate supporters of Leith’s local club, Hibernian F.C. (aka ‘Hibs’).

“When you look at films like The Full Monty and Four Weddings, they are very specific to their social and geographical setting,” explains Macdonald. “I’d had a lot of success with that, too, with Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, which were both set in Scotland. I knew that was important to do.”

Also imperative was a streamlining process that saw the number of songs reduced from 20 down to 13. “I did feel very sentimental about losing some of the songs,” Page Croft admits. “But it needed the tough love that DNA gave to it. They made some very sensible decisions.” While the musical spine of the stage show has survived largely intact for the film, each song underwent a rigorous test about the structural role it played in the emotional arc and momentum of the story. No space for hangers-on, however beautiful or melodic. Every tune had to earn its place.

“There wasn’t a huge amount of to-ing and fro-ing about the story or the characterisation,” says Greenhorn. “All the big arguments were about whether a certain song should stay or go. People get so attached to their favourites.” The survivors making up Sunshine on Leith’s final track list are: ‘Sky Takes The Soul’, ‘I’m On My Way’, ‘Over And Done With’, ‘Misty Blue’, ‘Make My Heart Fly’, ‘Let’s Get Married’, ‘Oh Jean’, ‘Hate My Love’, ‘Then I Met You’, ‘Should Have Been Loved’, ‘Sunshine on Leith’, ‘Letter From America’ and ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’

Encouraged by the positive collaboration they had enjoyed with the company on their previous production Dredd, Macdonald and Reich subsequently approached Entertainment Film Distributors, Britain’s largest independent distribution company and a long-time supporter of UK film production. Entertainment agreed to provide the financial backing to Sunshine on Leith with additional support also coming from the BFI and Creative Scotland.

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I walked the streets to find the one I’d looked for,

I climbed the stairs that led me to your front door

– ‘I’M ON MY WAY’

THE DIRECTOR: DEXTER FLETCHER

A Scottish musical about a Scottish family, set in Leith and featuring songs by one of the most identifiably Scottish musical acts of all time. Who better than a dyed-in-the-wool north Londoner to tackle the assignment of directing Sunshine on Leith for the big screen?

It’s fair to say that Dexter Fletcher is not an immediately obvious choice for the task. But Macdonald and Reich understood that an outsider’s perspective was needed to bring fresh shadings to the piece, and with his acclaimed directorial debut Wild Bill (2011), the onetime child actor had impressed everyone with his skilled handling of that film’s complex emotions as well as the outstanding performances he’d extracted from a cast including Charlie Creed-Miles and Will Poulter. Fletcher added an extra dimension to an East End gangster tale we’ve all seen a million times before. He made Wild Bill warm, touching, funny and compelling – all the elements that Sunshine on Leith needed in spades.

Moreover, when Macdonald and Reich went to meet him, it was obvious that Fletcher’s infectiously buoyant personality, unrestrained enthusiasm and deep knowledge of and love for musicals made him the perfect man for the job. “You think, ‘Baby Face directing my musical? What could be better?’” smiles Macdonald, referring to the iconic child-gangster role Fletcher played in Bugsy Malone.

Coming off Wild Bill, Fletcher was looking to take a left turn with his second directing gig. “With Wild Bill, I was in a world that I knew reasonably well and I wanted to try and challenge myself with something that was as far away from that as possible,” he affirms. “Sunshine on Leith certainly fits that bill. Musicals were my first great love as a kid. The first film I remember sitting down and watching was Singing in the Rain, and of course I was in Bugsy Malone.”

The profound influence of that 1976 musical, which marked Fletcher’s film acting debut, was brought to bear in Sunshine On Leith in the way that director Alan Parker had placed an emphasis on ensuring the story worked dramatically, with or without songs. It was about making convincing, captivating drama first and foremost, and one of Fletcher’s first duties was poring over the script with a copy of The Proclaimers’ lyrics beside him, in order to understand how the emotional beats of the band’s music melded with the narrative. “The way Stephen connected the lyrics to the personal stories of each character was extremely clever,” he says.

Like Wild Bill, Sunshine on Leith was all about family for Fletcher – exploring the dynamics that exist between the mother, father, sister and brother at the narrative heart of Greenhorn’s script.

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He was also enamoured by the topicality of British soldiers returning home from a modern-day war, trying to readjust into a world that had changed since they were last there. And, of course, he loved the songs, translating the energy and enthusiasm of a musical onto the screen while keeping the story and characters firmly grounded in reality.

As an actor himself, Fletcher brings an intuitive understanding of people, feelings and performance to the set. “He’s a great communicator and a great presence,” observes Macdonald. Everybody likes Dexter, everybody wants to work for Dexter, everybody wants to do more for Dexter. That’s a great talent to have on a film set.”

“He’s basically putting on a show with this film,” adds Reich. “You had to feel this energy and electricity running through the story. It can be hard getting people to feel as energised in the sixth hour of a shooting day as they were in the first, but Dexter has a way of doing that. He’s just fantastic with people and he had a great relationship with George Richmond, the Director of Photography. They’ve filmed this in a way that is properly appealing.”

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When we’re old, if they ask me, “How do you define success?”

I’ll say, “You meet a woman, you fall in love, you ask her and she says yes”

– ‘LET’S GET MARRIED’

THE CAST: RAB & JEAN

Everyone agreed that the cast should be made up of actors first, and singers second, in order to keep Sunshine On Leith firmly grounded in the real world. Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks as Rab and Jean, the heads of the Henshaw clan, are the linchpins holding the story together. “Even though I don’t like to think of myself as old, me and Peter do represent the older generation,” says Horrocks. “It’s great that you have the young relationships that younger people will relate to, and also a much more mature take on relationships with Jean and Rab. It’s a good counterbalance.”

There are few more accomplished Scottish actors working today than Mullan, who grounds every role he plays with the veneer of truth and complexity. “He’s an actor’s actor,” says Macdonald. “He’s widely embraced as one of the best in the business. Fortunately he wanted to do it. He’s a big Proclaimers fan and he’s the centre of the film.”

For his part, Mullan was elated to be approached, while admitting that he did express initial concern his singing voice might not be up to scratch. “I said, ‘I ain’t no singer’ and they said, ‘You just have the one song.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, I can wing that’,” says Mullan, who sings The Proclaimers’ ‘Oh Jean’ at Rab and Jean’s 25th anniversary party. “I never thought I’d get the chance to do a musical. I love them; I grew up on them. The fact that I got to do one was great fun. I had a good time singing my song, although I’m not sure what the audience will think.”

“Rab’s a decent enough guy,” Mullan continues with characteristic understatement. “He’s a decent guy who made a mistake 25 years previous that catches up with him. And he pays the price. Apart from that, he’s a straightforward soul. There’s no massive neuroses about him or anger management issues or any of that, which is normally what I play.”

Fletcher sees Mullan as almost the personification of the working-class Scottish man, and someone audiences will choose to invest in as the story unfolds. He’s a straight-up family man whose world is complete again when his son returns to Leith, only to fracture once more when the revelation of a past indiscretion jeopardises his life and marriage. “I was very keen for the film to have that anchor; I wanted everyone to believe that this was a real family, these are real people, these are real stories,” says Fletcher. “Peter brings that in spades. He is a very real guy, an actor of great integrity and depth.”

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For Jean, the slightly bohemian woman who works in an art gallery and sings the title song, the filmmakers felt it was important to find an actress with an accomplished singing voice. They approached Horrocks, whose musical talents are renowned thanks to her highly praised stage appearances in CABARET, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and, of course, THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE. The latter is a role for which Horrocks is justly revered and she was lauded with a BAFTA nomination as Best Actress for the show’s 1998 film adaptation, Little Voice.

At Macdonald, Reich and Fletcher’s first breakfast meeting with The Proclaimers at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, the brothers were thrilled when informed that Horrocks was in the frame, labelling her their dream actress to portray Jean. “I thought, ‘I’d better get her now!’” laughs Reich, who had tracked the actress down to Greece, where she was on holiday, to pitch her the project (she, in turn, had sung ‘Letter To America’ down the line).

“It was really nice to be able to sing again,” says the actress. “Because lots of people do ask me, ‘When are you going to do something with singing again?’” During Sunshine on Leith, the foundation of Jean and Rab’s till-death-do-us-part commitment to each other is shaken to its core. Jean finds her vision of what her life has been shattered, and it’s all she can do to cope with the trauma. The two actors relished the opportunity to play the emotional highs and lows of Jean and Rab’s story opposite each other.

“I have great admiration for Peter. He’s a superb actor and very compelling on screen,” says Horrocks, who began practicing her Scottish accent with her son’s maths teacher, who happens to be from Leith. “He’s a complete example of not appearing to do very much on film while being completely magnetic.”

“It goes without saying that Jane is a great actress and a great singer,” says Mullan, returning the compliment. “But more important to me is the fact that she’s a nice person and a great laugh. That’s important to me on a set. When they shout action, you do your thing, whether it be heavy or light, and when they shout cut, you come back into the real world. And Jane’s definitely of that school.”

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‘Cause I never seem to know the time when you’re with me,

You can tell it to the birds, I’ll tell the bees

– ‘MAKE MY HEART FLY’

THE CAST: DAVY, YVONNE, ALLY & LIZ

Securing the consummate talents of Horrocks and Mullan allowed Fletcher and casting director Nina Gold to throw their net far and wide when it came to casting the two younger couples whose rocky romantic journeys are also charted in Sunshine on Leith: Davy and Yvonne, and Ally and Liz. Their final four were selected from a competitive pool of bright young things, George MacKay, Freya Mavor, Kevin Guthrie and Antonia Thomas all bringing differing degrees of experience as actors and singers to their respective roles.

Having already featured in Peter Pan (2003), The Boys Are Back, Private Peaceful and How I Live Now, the upcoming adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s young-adult novel directed by Andrew Macdonald’s younger brother Kevin, MacKay has long been tipped as a future star in the film industry. While his name might be 100% Scottish, MacKay is London-born with an Australian father so had to learn the accent to play Davy Henshaw. “I tried to keep it going as much as possible, even when we weren’t shooting,” says the 21-year-old. “That really helped because Dex likes to throw things at you, so you had to be ready for the occasional improvisation.”

Despite being younger than his on-screen best mate Ally, MacKay describes Davy as the more level-headed of the two returning soldiers. “He’s a thoughtful guy,” says MacKay. “He’s got this insecurity that he can’t pursue what he really wants to do, which is why he joined up with the army rather than go to college. He’s been a good soldier but the things he really wants to do, he doesn’t have the confidence to pursue.”

Even though Sunshine on Leith is MacKay’s first experience with musicals, he did have some prior musicality. He once played in a band formed by friends, and also plays the guitar and harmonica. “I found it liberating to do something so different,” he says. “It was quite challenging because we had to work to the timings of the songs and inject emotion into them so they mean something. It was an interesting process.”

Upon his return to Leith, Davy meets and falls for Yvonne, portrayed by Antonia Thomas, who had previously worked with Fletcher on ‘Misfits’, the hit E4 show in which she’d played Alisha Daniels for three seasons (Sunshine on Leith’s director guest-starred in two early episodes). Thomas also happens to possess a beautiful soprano voice, cultivated during her training at the National Youth Music Theatre and Bristol Old Vic drama school.

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“Yvonne is a nurse who has been living in Scotland for two years,” explains Thomas. “She’s a bit jaded about love after breaking up with her previous boyfriend, so doesn’t think she wants to meet anyone. But when her best friend Liz introduces her to Davy, they immediately hit it off. It’s a whirlwind romance.”

While Yvonne and Davy enjoy the honeymoon phase of their new romance, Ally is eager to take his relationship with Davy’s sister Liz to the next level. Liz, played by newcomer Freya Mavor, isn’t nearly so sure. Star of the fifth and sixth seasons of E4’s BAFTA-winning series ‘Skins’ and scion of a Scottish arts dynasty (her father is an award-winning playwright while her grandfather once ran the Scottish Arts Council), 19-year-old Mavor sang a Celtic folk ballad at her audition that mesmerised the filmmakers. “It was one of those moments where your jaw drops and a tear forms in your eye,” recalls Fletcher.

Although now resident in Paris, Mavor was born in Glasgow and raised in Edinburgh, and had gone with her drama class to see the third production of SUNSHINE ON LEITH. “Me and my friend were particularly obsessed with ‘Oh Jean’ because of the dramatic way the actor performed it,” Mavor enthuses. “It really stuck in our minds. She was the first person I told when I got the job and she was so thrilled.”

Like her friend Yvonne, Liz is also a nurse. She’s also the most bubbly, energetic and ambitious member of the Henshaw clan. When Ally re-enters her life, Liz is at a proverbial fork in the road, wondering whether to venture forth from the warmth and protection of Leith into the wider world, namely a nursing job in Florida. “She’s craving this idea of travel and of experiencing something new, something unknown,” explains Mavor. “She’s never had that whereas Ally has, even though it did come in the army. He’s been to all these places and she envies that a little bit.”

Guthrie is the other young Scot in the cast and originally hails from the village of Neilston, south of Glasgow. “It’s very much like Leith in the sense that it’s community oriented, people are very friendly, everyone knows each other,” says Guthrie, who arrived on set as the biggest fan of The Proclaimers amongst the younger cast. Guthrie’s credits include performing at the Trafalgar Studios in London in an acclaimed production of MACBETH this year, playing Lennox opposite James McAvoy as the titular Scottish lord. Sunshine on Leith is the actor’s second film after a part in Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers, and his director credits him with “a fantastic energy and a glint in his eye. He just felt right straight away.”

Early in the auditioning process, Guthrie was reading to play Davy while MacKay was reading for Ally. “One crazy night Dexter phoned me and said, ‘We need to flip the roles around’,” says Guthrie. “He thought our energies were more in tune with the other characters and I think he got it absolutely right: I sit better in Ally’s skin and Georgie-boy sits better in Davy’s skin.”

Guthrie describes Ally as “a lovely guy with a wild-eyed determination to get everything right”. He is rocked by what happens on tour in Afghanistan, and returns to Scotland determined to

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settle down with his childhood sweetheart. “He’s completely besotted by Liz,” says Guthrie. “Ally’s a great part in this story. I really thrive on coming to work every day.”

All of Sunshine on Leith’s main cast adored working with Fletcher. “He is the coolest guy on the planet,” says Guthrie. “He brings this energy and charisma and charm and fire – he’s buzzing the whole time – to the set. He’s a great team player but he also appreciates that he needs to rely on the strengths of his individual actors. He likes every take to be slightly different so you were never repeating yourself.”

“He’s such a people person,” adds MacKay. “He enjoys trying to understand people’s motives, emotions, feelings and relationships. I’d describe his directing as social, in that it’s a study of people and their interactions. Dexter always wants to know what’s natural and what’s real, whether it’s during the songs or in between them.”

“He’s made the whole experience a joy,” echoes Mavor. “His energy is contagious, which is great when you’re working long hours on a film set. He’s like this firecracker walking around, oozing this aura of positivity!”

The younger cast – “the four kids!” laughs Mavor – all lived in the same Glasgow apartment block, forming a tight bond, partaking of the city’s active nightlife and launching their own rendition of ‘Come Dine With Me’ during the shoot. “George’s was brilliant,” says Thomas. “He made a creamy chicken pasta with vegetables, which was delicious, and pineapple with ginger and mint for dessert. Kevin’s is next; I’ve got some ideas up my sleeve but I’m waiting to see what he pulls out of the bag before I plan my menu.” “I go last but I’ve already got my whole evening planned,” chimes Mavor. “Got to go out with a bang.”

Rounding out the cast is Jason Flemyng as Harry, Jean’s boss at the art gallery, who holds a torch for her and expresses his feelings in the showy, up tempo number, ‘Should Have Been Loved’. “I love Jason – we have a deal that he has to be in every film I do,” says Fletcher. “His song is a hard one to pull off. I needed somebody who could bring a larger-than-life personality to that moment without it feeling too far out there.”

“Jason turned up with such energy and excitement and a decent Scottish accent,” says Greenhorn. “The number he sings plays an important role in the last third of the film. It lifts the energy when everything’s started to get a bit sombre. Jason’s the perfect man for that. He brightens up the screen.”

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When the inspiration is above my station, thoughts are melancholy and I let them pass,

I tend to view this nation through the condensation on a dirty glass

– ‘MISTY BLUE’

SHOOTING IN SCOTLAND

Befitting a film with ‘Sunshine’ in its title, the goal was always to create a visual warmth and upbeat mood. Helping Fletcher achieve this was Director of Photography George Richmond, who had also helped the director make his first film, Wild Bill, look far grander than its modest budget.

“I remember George saying to me, ‘I know it’s called Sunshine on Leith but do you think we’ll really get sunshine in Edinburgh in November?’” says Macdonald. “I said, ‘Of course we will!’” And fortuitously, during the week the production scheduled to shoot exteriors in Edinburgh, the sun shone every day.

Despite being set in Leith and Edinburgh, for reasons of financing most of the shoot took place in the neighbouring city of Glasgow. “I loved spending proper time in Glasgow,” says Horrocks. “The people are fantastic, really friendly. I’ve been put to shame, actually, how unfriendly I am living in London! You come here and everyone’s so helpful and the architecture is superb. I did a Rennie Mackintosh weekend last weekend.”

Shooting in Scotland was a homecoming of sorts for Macdonald, having shot his first two films, Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, in that part of the world, and he wanted to make sure it looked appealing and inviting. Native son Greenhorn found himself very impressed when he saw the results. “It makes me homesick for Scotland watching the film,” says Sunshine on Leith’s originator. “I wrote it partly as a love letter to Leith and to Edinburgh, and I think that shines through in the way that George has photographed it. I think it’s going to be a pleasant surprise for people used to darker film portrayals of Scotland.”

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It could be tomorrow, or it could be today,

When the sky takes the soul and the earth takes the clay

– ‘SKY TAKES THE SOUL’

THE SINGING AND THE DANCING

To sing or not to sing? That was the question. A talking point before and during the making of Sunshine on Leith was the radical approach adopted by director Tom Hooper for his adaptation of Les Miserables, in which that film’s actors sang live during each take. Macdonald admits he was tempted to try something similar. But when he learned that Mamma Mia!, another musical populated by actors rather than professional singers, used pre-recorded vocals and yet still maintained an unpolished, rough-round-the-edges feel that Macdonald wanted for Sunshine On Leith, he settled on that option.

Entrusted with the crucial role of transferring The Proclaimers’ music to the big screen was musical director Paul Englishby. He arranged each song, guided the artists through their lead vocals and harmonies, and was on set to make sure not only that the pre-recordings matched the actors’ lip-syncing but also that “the emotion of the recording matched the emotion of the acting”.

Initially, Englishby recorded the instrumental arrangements at Angel Studios in Islington, north London, using guitars, drum, bass and piano, stripping The Proclaimers’ melodies right back to their “folky essence” as the composer describes it. He then ferried the tracks up to Scotland and supervised each actor recording their singing performances before the start of shooting. “Some of the actors were natural singers and had sung before, whereas some hadn’t at all,” he says. “But it worked out well because, character-wise, the acting fit the voice so it wasn’t necessary to have big musical-theatre voices.”

During post-production, back at Angel Studios, Englishby added his orchestral cues and beefed up several of the more up-tempo numbers by adding brass and strings. Many of the compositional cues were about foreshadowing the melodic themes of each Proclaimers’ song on the soundtrack so that by the time a song was being crooned on screen, audiences would already feel a sense of familiarity. “It was about teasing out the melodies before you get to the moment of bloom,” says Englishby. “And all the while, we’re building towards ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ at the end with a particular chord sequence in that song that I laced through the score.”

While the shoot was comparatively brief at six weeks, there was a four-week rehearsal leading up to it which allowed Fletcher and his cast to cultivate the core relationship dynamics, as well

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as construct scenes around songs, record vocals and work out choreography. Macdonald describes the rehearsal process as “almost like putting on a show. Every week they would put on this show in a church and we could all see how the characters were developing within the film’s musical set-pieces. It was a fulfilling process.”

Anyone expecting the jazz-hands-style dance numbers often associates with the musical genre, not typically in a positive way, will be disappointed by Sunshine on Leith. Until the last sequence, the choreography in each musical number ranges from fairly simple and un-showy to virtually non-existent. “Some of the dancing was very choreographed and some of it was just what we felt in the moment,” explains Guthrie. “It was a living-breathing entity every day. It changed, we’d try different things, we turned the volume up and down.”

Depending on where a song fit into the narrative and the mood it was required to evoke, the tempo of the band’s songs were sometimes altered for Sunshine on Leith. ‘Hate My Love’, for instance, is traditionally an aggressive, hard-hitting number but has been slowed down to become a tender ballad sung by Jean in her bedroom, when she’s feeling heartbroken by her husband’s perfidy. Englishby pared the song right back to its minimalist roots, using only two guitars and Horrocks’ voice.

“The Proclaimers have such a visceral sound that it’s nice to perform the songs in a softer way,” says Horrocks. “I think female voices bring out their lyrics in a very different way.”

In a climactic sequence at the heart of the film, Mullan belts out ‘Oh Jean’ to his wife at a raucous ceilidh celebrating their silver wedding anniversary, shot at a working man’s club in Glasgow decorated by thousands of fairy lights and colonised by 120 extras. By all accounts, Mullan’s emotive crooning, played during takes, made more than a few eyes glisten on set. “I watched all their faces on the playback and nobody stuck their fingers in their ears or pretended to have a migraine so they could run off set,” the actor jokes. “I didn’t want to let the side down but I don’t see any record producers saying, ‘Peter, could you sing Val Doonican’s greatest hits?’”

Horrocks’ rendition of ‘Sunshine on Leith’ was also tipped by several cast and crew as a tears-in-the-eye moment. Some of the actors were more out of their comfort zone than others; many had singing lessons to guide them through the process. “It was a massive challenge but I love a challenge,” Guthrie grins. “It’s about thinking that you’re acting through the song rather than performing it as a number. But the music of The Proclaimers is so brilliant that it’s very much storytelling.”

The stories The Proclaimers wanted to tell might not always match the film’s interpretation. But Greenhorn’s genius in playing the Proclaimers’ songs against expectations has already been praised by the brothers. For instance, ‘Sky Takes The Soul’, the film’s intense, fearful opening number, features Davy and Ally singing about the imminence of death as their troop carrier trundles along a dusty road in Afghanistan. When Fletcher asked the Reid brothers the

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inspiration behind the song’s resonant lyrics, they explained it had been written in support of the Tamil Tigers.

“The reality of what each song is for Charlie and Craig might be a million miles away from how it connects to our film,” says Fletcher. “Stephen took those songs and made them very personal moments for these characters. The song ‘Misty Blue’ is really talking about what it means to be Scottish, and we use it as a love song. It’s interesting using songs that are written as big statements in this very personal and detailed way. It adds so much texture and gravitas to the storytelling, which is great for a musical.”

‘Let’s Get Married’ plays out as a cheeky, all-male declaration of how to propose to your intended in a Hibs-supporting pub. The deeply political ‘Letter To America’, which touches on everything from the ethnic-cleansing Highland Clearances episode to the Thatcher-era decimation of Scotland’s heavy industries, becomes a heartfelt ballad sung after Liz has left for Florida, while ‘Make My Heart Fly’ is given a tender, folky rendition by Guthrie and Mavor. And ‘Should Have Been Loved’, which was filmed in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and performed by Flemyng, Horrocks and two other women, is delivered as a straight-up folk-rock standard.

“When you hear ‘Make My Heart Fly’, your heart really does fly,” observes Horrocks. “I was struck by how fantastically poetic their songs are. They’re amazing folk songs.”

And, of course, there’s the Reid brothers’ most anthemic and globally recognisable tune, ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’, which provides Sunshine on Leith with a magnificently upbeat finale. Determined to deliver a big emotional pay-off for the audience, Fletcher pushed to make it the production’s one added element: a large-scale musical number that was shot outdoors on the streets of Edinburgh, featuring MacKay, Thomas and 500 extras all belting out The Proclaimers’ iconic ode to romantic devotion.

“That song has got a power and a life beyond the band,” says Craig Reid. “There’s the song and then there’s the band. That song is so much bigger than anything else we’ve ever done, and probably ever will do.”

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Thought that I was finished, thought that I was complete,

Thought that I was whole instead of being half of something

– ‘THEN I MET YOU’

THE PROCLAIMERS: THEIR SONGS, THEIR STORY

Born in Leith in 1962, Craig and Charlie Reid grew up in Edinburgh, Cornwall and Auchtermuchty in Fife. At home, they listened to Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams. At school they played in punk bands and formed The Proclaimers in 1983, rapidly acquiring a fervent live following in Scotland. Peter Mullan was in a flat in Glasgow in the mid-1980s when he first heard this new band from Scotland. “I remember hearing a bootleg when I was 25, 26 of the two guys singing – their first album hadn’t even come out yet but someone had recorded them live so most of the songs were on there,” the actor recalls. “The one that really struck me was ‘Letter To America’. ‘Oh Jean’ was there too. I thought they were amazing.”

In January 1987, they made a seminal appearance on the Channel 4 pop programme The Tube, performing ‘Letter From America’ and ‘Throw The ‘R’ Away’. Singing in regional accents about Scotland, they were a far cry from the mid-‘80s acts like Rick Astley and Duran Duran and became a phenomenon almost overnight, signing to Chrysalis within a month and recording their debut album acoustically, This Is The Story, a week later.

Macdonald has strong memories of the first record coming out in 1987, and listening to the brothers sing in the distinctive Scottish brogue that marked them out as iconoclasts. “I remember people reacting to them as a contemporary band who were clearly Scottish and sang about things that were real,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with pop songs about love but they sang about things that mattered, that you could relate to, and that were a bit political too. When they were on The Tube, it was a big deal. Things like that make you proud to be Scottish.”

The Proclaimers’ second album, 1988′s Sunshine On Leith, featured the deeply moving title track, the raucous ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ and ‘I’m On My Way’, which featured in Shrek (2001). ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ spent six weeks at number 1 in Australia and was a Top 10 college radio hit in the US, where it also peaked at No. 3 during a six-month reign in the US Billboard Singles Chart after appearing on the soundtrack of Benny And Joon (1993).

Since then, the band have gone on to release a further seven studio albums, the most recent being Like Comedy in 2012, as well as two best of compilations. The Proclaimers’ soulful, folk-inspired songs remain hugely popular and continue to attract new converts, marked by their emotional honesty, social awareness, working-class passions and concert-friendly raucousness. Their music explores male emotional inarticulacy, Scottish identity and the twins’ ardent

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socialism, and they still tour for, on average, six months of every year, performing at concert venues and music festivals all over the world.

“As soon as you tell a taxi driver in Glasgow you’re doing The Proclaimers musical, they all burst into song, ‘500 Miles’ or ‘Misty Blue’ or whatever,” says Thomas. “They’re a huge part of the cultural fabric in Scotland.” Horrocks got to experience their local popularity first-hand when she attended the halftime draw at a Hibs game with Allon Reich, listening as 30,000 supporters belted out the team’s anthem, ‘Sunshine on Leith’. “It was very evocative,” say Reich.

Macdonald recalls going to see the Celtic soul brothers at the Town & Country Club in Camden in the ‘80s and ‘90s. “The NME was still popular and they were still young,” he smiles. “They started out cutting edge, they probably went through a period where they were considered a bit naff, and now they’ve become classic. Some people did raise their eyebrows when I said I wanted to do Sunshine on Leith but when people see it, I think they’re going to fall in love with The Proclaimers all over again.”

“This film covers big themes: family, love, relationships, bereavement,” he continues. “But it’s also full of humour and joy. It has a very big heart.”

“For all its downbeat moments, it’s an upbeat story,” concludes Reich. “We want people dancing out of the cinemas.”

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ABOUT THE CAST

PETER MULLAN (RAB)

Peter Mullan started his career at 19 and began making several shorts. He made his debut in theatre in 1988 before moving to cinema and television. Fame came with the parts he played in such films as Riff-Raff (1991) by Ken Loach, Braveheart (1995) by Mel Gibson and Trainspotting (1996) by Danny Boyle, but above all when he won for best leading actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 for My Name Is Joe (1998), once again by Loach.

Most recently Peter won the Sundance World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Leading Role in Tyrannosaur (2011) and went on to star in War Horse (2011) and most recently Welcome to the Punch (2013).

JANE HORROCKS (JEAN)

Jane Horrocks left Lancashire at the age of 18 to establish her acting career in London. In 1988 she appeared as Rita in the British film drama The Dressmaker and then in 1990 she played Faith in Memphis Belle. She drew critical notice for her performance in the Mike Leigh film Life is Sweet (1991) followed by her award-winning performance in the West End play THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE. She went on to reprise her role in the screen adaption Little Voice (1998). In 2006 she played the title role in 'The Amazing Mrs Pritchard', a drama about a female elected prime minister and starred as Angela Quinn in TV series ‘The Street’. In 2008, she returned to the stage and starred in Richard Jones's critically acclaimed production of THE GOOD SOUL OF SZECHUAN at the Young Vic. She was reunited with Jones in a new musical production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, which opened at the Young Vic in October 2009.She is perhaps best known for her role as Bubble in the TV series ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ (1992 – 2012).

GEORGE MACKAY (DAVY)

George's film career began at the age of 9 with Peter Pan (2003) in which he played Curly. Following his big screen debut, George has gone on to feature in such films as The Thief Lord (2006) and Defiance (2008). George was nominated for a British Independent Film Award as Most Promising British Newcomer and for Young British Performer of The Year at the Critics Circle Awards for his role in Scott Hicks' The Boys Are Back (2009) alongside Clive Owen. He played Jake Zeppi in Hunky Dory (2011), and Tommo Peaceful in the film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel Private Peaceful (2012).

He is soon to be seen as the lead in Breakfast with Jonny Wilkinson (2013) and For Those in Peril (2013) directed by BAFTA winning Paul Wright. Also poised for release is the much-anticipated adaptation of How I Live Now (2013) by Meg Roscoff.

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ANTONIA THOMAS (YVONNE)

Born in 1986, Antonia was raised in South East London. She was cast in the role of Alisha Bailey in Channel 4 hit series ‘Misfits’ (2009) in her final year at Bristol Old Vic. She started filming the day she graduated. Antonia appeared in three series through to 2011 and was herself nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series at Monte-Carlo TV Festival in 2011 and was nominated for the 2011 Screen Nation Rising Star Award. In 2010, Antonia starred as Maddy in BBC series ‘The Deep’ (2010). The same year she also starred in the BBC produced TV film ‘Stanley Park’ (2010). In March 2011, Antonia returned to her stage roots appearing as Maria in Lorca’s critically acclaimed YERMA at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and in February the following year, Antonia starred in Coldplay’s video for their single Charlie Brown (2012).

Antonia has most recently been seen as one of the leads in the new ITV drama, ‘Homefront’ (2013).

Most recent film appearances include the lead role in the film adaptation of Matt Thorne's award-winning urban comedy novel, Eight Minutes Idle (2012) and as one of the leads in Northern Soul (2013) written and directed by award winning photographer Elaine Constantine, alongside Steve Coogan and Ricky Tomlinson. Antonia is also playing Lisa in Spike Island (2013), as the lead, Nicky, in Rearview (2013).

FREYA MAVOR (LIZ)

Freya Mavor made her professional on-screen debut in 2011 when she landed the lead role of Mini McGuinness in the fifth and sixth series of Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning drama ‘Skins’ (2011 – 2012) Using her National Youth Theatre training she beat off stiff competition in an open casting to secure the role.

Since finishing‘Skins’ Freya has shot 2 independent feature films: Not Another Happy Ending (2013, directed by John McKay) and Sunshine on Leith (2013, directed by Dexter Fletcher). In early 2013 Freya shot the role of Princess Elizabeth in the BBC’s ‘The White Queen’. Set against the iconic backdrop of the War of the Roses, ‘The White Queen’ is a major new ten-hour adaptation of Philippa Gregory‘s vivid bestselling historical novel series The Cousin’s War.

Freya was born in Glasgow and is currently based in Paris. During her early teens, Freya moved to La Rochelle in the South-West of France. Her family stayed in France for 5 years where she learned to speak the language fluently. Freya recently shot a comedy sketch show in French, which will transmit later this year on Canal +.

Freya has a keen interest in fashion and was cast as the face of PRINGLE OF SCOTLAND for

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its 2011 spring/summer campaign. She also won the Fashion Icon of the Year Award at the 2011 Scottish Fashion Awards, beating Tilda Swinton! In 2012 Freya was nominated for the Best Actress award at the TV Choice Awards. And in 2013 Freya was named as one of Screen Internationals Stars of Tomorrow.

KEVIN GUTHRIE (ALLY)

Kevin was born and brought up in his hometown of Neilston, Paisley in Scotland. He trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, graduating in 2011. He was granted permission to leave his training early to perform the title role in John Tiffany's National Theatre of Scotland Production of PETER PAN (2010), also starring Cal MacAninch as Hook. This provided the platform for the body of work Kevin has built now, including major credits with National Theatre of Scotland, Frantic Assembly, Royal Shakespeare Co., as well as TV credits with BBC, ITV, Endor Productions among others including ‘Restless’ (2012), ‘Case Histories’ (2011) and ‘Field of Blood’ (2011).

JASON FLEMYNG (HARRY)

Prolific in his output, Flemyng juggles a hugely successful career both in the UK and the US. He has worked repeatedly with Matthew Vaughan and Guy Ritchie on the box office smash X:Men: First Class (2011), the critically acclaimed Kick Ass (2010), Stardust (2007), Layer Cake (2004), Mean Machine (2001), Snatch (2000) and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). He has worked on David Fincher’s award winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Flemyng has also starred in Mike Newell's Great Expectations (2012), Joe Wright’s Hanna (2011), Clash of the Titans (2010), Eran Creevy’s Shifty (2008), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), From Hell (2001) opposite Johnny Depp and Rock Star (2001) with Mark Wahlberg.

TV credits include ‘Black Mirror: The Waldo Moment’ (2013), ‘Primeval’ (2007), ‘Losing Gemma’ (2006), ‘Ghost Squad’ (2005), ‘Quatermass Experiment’ (2005), ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (1999), ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (1998), Stephen Spielberg’s ‘Young Indy’ (1992) and Danny Boyle’s ‘For The Greater Good’ (1991).

Highlights of his theatre career include CORIOLANUS (1990), AS YOU LIKE IT (1990), MOSCOW GOLD (1990), BARBARIANS (1990) and ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (1990) all at the RSC Barbican.

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ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

DEXTER FLETCHER (DIRECTOR)

Dexter Fletcher has made a graceful switch from acting to directing over the past couple of years. Fletcher’s directorial debut was with Wild Bill (2011). Fletcher garnered great acclaim with Wild Bill winning the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain award for Best First Feature in 2012 as well as being nominated for a 2013 BAFTA in the Best Debut Film category.

As well as directing his second feature Sunshine on Leith (2013) this year, Dexter is currently in development with feature film Provenance (2013) with producer Tim Cole and BBC Films.

Fletcher is best known for his acting career where he has had fame from roles such as Baby Face in Bugsy Malone (1976), Soap in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Spike Thomson in ‘Press Gang' (1989- 1993).

ANDREW MACDONALD (PRODUCER)

In 1993, at the age of 27, Macdonald produced his first feature film Shallow Grave (1994) for Channel 4. Written by John Hodge and directed by Danny Boyle, the film was a major box office success and won the BAFTA for Best British Film. The same creative team went on to make a number of films together: the critically acclaimed and extremely popular film version of the Irvine Welsh novel Trainspotting (1996), A Life Less Ordinary (1997), the 30-minute science fiction film Alien Love Triangle (1999) and the big screen adaptation of Alex Garland's book The Beach (2000), starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Since 1997, Macdonald has headed DNA Films. Through DNA Films, Macdonald has produced the following titles: Beautiful Creatures (2013), Strictly Sinatra (2001), The Final Curtain (2002), The Parole Officer (2001), Heartlands (2002), Separate Lies (2005), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and The History Boys (2006). For DNA Films and Fox Searchlight, Macdonald has also produced the highly successful 28 Days Later (2002) and, more recently, its sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007) and the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007). 2011 saw the release of Never Let Me Go (2010)- an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's critically acclaimed Booker Prize shortlisted 2005 novel of dystopian Britain, starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield.

ALLON REICH (PRODUCER)

Reich has been producing partner to Andrew Macdonald at DNA Films since November 2002 working on all of DNA Films' recent projects, including: The History Boys (2006), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Notes on a Scandal (2006), 28 Weeks Later (2007), and Never Let Me Go (2010). Formerly, Reich was at Miramax, where he had been the Head of Film UK and executive produced Shekhar Kapur's Four Feathers (2002), Damien O'Donnells' Heartlands

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(2002)and Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things (2002). Previously at Film Four, he worked on many productions including Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Shallow Grave (1994), The Madness of King George (1994), Brassed Off (1996) and Trainspotting (1996).

ARABELLA PAGE CROFT AND KIERAN PARKER (PRODUCERS)

Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker run Glasgow based Black Camel Pictures. The company currently have two feature films in post-production including their first musical Sunshine on Leith (2013) a coproduction with DNA, starring Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks. They are also just finishing Kieran’s directorial debut Outpost 3: Rise Of The Spetsnaz (2013) which is the their third feature film in their action horror Outpost trilogy. Their recent credits also include: Outpost (2008) starring Ray Stevenson, Outpost 2: Black Sun (2012) starring Richard Coyle and Catherine Steadman and psychological thriller Legacy starring Idris Elba. This year they also released Outpost Defence – an iphone app and a graphic novel – Outpost Projekt Unbesiegbar. They are married with two children.

DNA FILMS

DNA is run by Andrew Macdonald and his producing partner Allon Reich and is one of the UK’s most successful production companies. Productions include Dredd (2012), Never Let Me Go (2010), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Notes on a Scandal (2006), 28 Weeks Later (2007), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), The Beach (2000), Trainspotting (1996) and Shallow Grave (1994).

BLACK CAMEL PICTURES

Black Camel Pictures is a successful Scottish based feature film and multi-platform company run by producer duo team Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker. The company has built their reputation around their low budget action horror series Outpost (2008), Outpost 2: Black Sun (2012) and Outpost 3: Rise Of The Spetsnaz (2013) and they also produced the psychological thriller Legacy (2010).

CREATIVE SCOTLAND

Creative Scotland is the national development agency for the arts, screen and creative industries. We will invest almost £83m of Scottish Government and National Lottery funding during 2012-2013. Our vision is: That Scotland is recognized as a leading creative nation – one that attracts, develops and retains talent, where the arts and the creative industries are supported and celebrated and their economic contribution fully captured, a nation where the arts and creativity play a central part in the lives, education and well-being of our population. www.creativescotland.com

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STEPHEN GREENHORN (WRITER)

Stephen Greenhorn is a Scottish playwright and screenwriter. He has been writing professionally since 1989. He divides his time between Glasgow and London.

Stephen’s TV work includes episodes of ‘The Bill’ and ‘Where The Heart Is’ for ITV. For BBC 1 he has written the six-part drama series ‘Glasgow Kiss’ (2000) and the fact-based feature drama ‘Derailed’ (2005). In 2002 he created the soap opera ‘River City’ for BBC Scotland. His 2006 adaptation of Jean Rhys’ ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ screened on both BBC 4 and BBC 1.

Most recently, he has contributed episodes to both the 2007 and 2008 series of ‘Doctor Who’ and wrote the five-part series ‘Marchlands’ (2011) for ITV.

Stephen’s plays have been produced by a wide variety of theatre companies across the UK as well as on BBC Radio. Notable successes include THE SALT WOUND (1994) and DISSENT (1998) for 7:84 Theatre Company and PASSING PLACES (1997) for the Traverse Theatre. PASSING PLACES won the author a nomination for Scottish Writer of the Year in 1998 and has since been translated many times and produced world-wide.

He co-wrote SLEEPING AROUND (1998) for Paines Plough and GILT (2003) for 7:84. He also adapted the children’s novel KING MATT (2001) for TAG Theatre Company and translated THE BALLAD OF CRAZY PAOLA (2001) for the Traverse.

In 2007 he created the award-winning musical Sunshine on Leith for Dundee Rep Theatre. He has now adapted his own script for the film.

MIKE GUNN (PRODUCTION DESIGNER)

Mike Gunn is a Production Designer working in Film, Television and Commercials.

Having graduated from Newcastle College of Art and Design in 1990, Mike worked his way through the Art Department to achieving his goal establishing himself as a Production Designer with credits that span the globe and the best part of 15 years.

Mike has made films in North America, Africa, Continental Europe as well as his home country, Scotland and the UK. Mike’s home life is based in Glasgow but his professional life takes him anywhere.

Mike has designed a wide range of films for cinema including Guy X (2005), Africa United (2010), Filth (2013) and Sunshine on Leith (2013) and is showcasing his work on many other screen projects.

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In television he has designed both small and large-scale productions including the critically acclaimed ‘Cambridge Spies’ (2003) and ‘God On Trial’ (2008) through to ‘Robin Hood’ (2006) and the ‘Bletchley Circle’ (2012).

Awards have included 2 BAFTA nominations for television and Film with a win in the category of Best Film Craft for the film Late Night Shopping (2001).

Mike won the Golden Arrow award for Commercial Design for his work on the Robinsons commercial for the miniature set of a birdhouse interior.

As well as working in Film and Television, Mike has taken his work into colleges and schools giving tutorials at Newcastle University and working in Glasgow schools teaching the principles of film production design.

GEORGE RICHMOND (DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)

In 2008 George picked up the Best Cinematography award at both the Syracuse and Monaco Film Festivals for his work on Marek Losey’s stunning debut feature, The Hide (2008), which marked the beginning of his move into lighting. His extensive Camera/Steadicam operator credits include War Horse (2011), Quantum of Solace (2008), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Children of Men (2006), for which he received the Society of Camera Operators Historical Shot Award. George went on to shoot Dexter Fletcher’s BIFA nominated directorial debut, Wild Bill (2011) and Nick Murphy’s Blood (2012) starring Paul Bettany and Mark Strong. He is currently lensing The Great Train Robbery: A Robber’s Tale (2013) for director Julian Jarrold.

ROSIE KAY (CHOREOGRAPHER)

Rosie Kay trained at London Contemporary Dance School and formed Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2004. The company regularly tours the UK and Internationally with dance theatre productions. Theatre based works include ASYLUM (2013), THE WILD PARTY (2012), DOUBLE POINTS: K, SUPERNOVA (2009) and 5 SOLDIERS- THE BODY IS THE FRONTLINE, THERE IS HOPE (2010) for the company as well as dance films 5 Soldiers, The Wild Party (2012) and 22 (2010). Outdoor works include THE GREAT TRAIN DANCE which took place on a steam train on the Severn Valley Railway and BALLET ON THE BUSES created with Birmingham Royal Ballet. Rosie Kay Dance Company was nominated as Best Independent Dance Company by the National Dance Awards, Critics Circle 2012. Currently Rosie Kay Dance Company is touring nationally with THERE IS HOPE (2013), a work that explores religion, faith and belief.

Rosie Kay is a former Rayne Foundation Fellow which has led to secondments with Anthony Minghella in Africa and an attachment with the 4th Battalion The Rifles which lead to the work 5 SOLDIERS. Kay has just completed choreographing the musical feature film, Sunshine on Leith (2013). Kay’s new work, Acts of Possession will premiere at Edinburgh festival this year. Rosie Kay is the Leverhulme funded Artist in Residence at the School of Anthropology and Museum

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Ethnology, University of Oxford. Kay is Associate Artist of DanceXchange, Birmingham Hippodrome and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Artists.

ANNE ROBBINS (COSTUME DESIGNER)

Anna Robbins has designed costumes for numerous award winning short and feature films as well as television drama. From her early projects, Can’t Stop Breathing (2005) and Tracks (2005), through to feature films Crying With Laughter (2009) and Up There (2012), which all won Scottish BAFTAs for Best Film, through to recent feature credits which include Citadel (2012) directed by Ciaran Foy and Love Bite (2012) directed by Andy De Emmony for Ecosse Films. The period short film Tumult (2012) was nominated for a BAFTA in 2013. In recent years Anna has designed costumes for the following quality television dramas: ‘The Jury II’ (2011), ‘Cuckoo’ (2012) and ‘Bob Servant Independent’ (2013). Prior to costume designing musical feature Sunshine on Leith in 2012 Anna costumed World Productions 1950’s drama ‘The Bletchley Circle’ (2012), which she is currently on board to design its second series in 2013. Anna graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a BA(Hons) Design and Applied Arts and also graduated earlier with an LLB(Hons) from Edinburgh Law School.

STUART GAZZARD (EDITOR)

Stuart began his editorial career in 1999 as an additional editor for the film Human Traffic (2000). He made the transition to film editor in 2001 with the short films Geometry and Gravity (2001) and Indecision (2004). This led Stuart to edit The Football Factory (2004). Since this, Stuart has worked on 20 film titles, including Dexter Fletcher's Wild Bill (2011) and most recently Iain Softley's Trap for Cinderella (2013) and Complicit (2013) for Channel 4.

PAUL ENGLISHBY (MUSIC DIRECTOR)

Award winning composer Paul Englishby is prolific and versatile, producing critically acclaimed scores for Film, Theatre, TV, Dance and the Concert Hall. He is best known for his Emmy award winning jazz inflected music to David Hare's ‘Page Eight’ (2011), his beautiful orchestral score to the Oscar Nominated An Education (2009), screenplay by Nick Hornby and directed by Lone Scherfig, and the thrillingly tense music for the BBC's ‘Luther’ (2010), as well as his many scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company with whom Paul is an Associate Artist.

His recent work includes the big band arrangements for Stephen Polliakoff's explosive series 'Dancing On The Edge' (2013) for BBC2, the Stephen Daldry directed play THE AUDIENCE (2013), 'Good Cop' (2012) a four part drama for the BBC, and the prime-time thriller 'Inside Men' (2012).

Paul received back-to-back ASCAP Awards for his scores to An Education (2009) and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (2008).

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Paul's talent at successfully delivering a broad and exciting range of scores is also demonstrated in his previous film and television work, which includes Hamlet (2009) a movie adaptation of the RSC's hugely successful stage; An Englishman In New York (2009), The Peep Show team's 'Magicians'; Brit comedy Confetti (2006), and the film Ten Minutes Older (2003) featuring works from award winning directors Spike Lee, Werner Herzog, Bernardo Bertolucci, Claire Denis, Mike Figgis, Jean Luc-Goddard and more.

Paul’s current projects include the third series of 'Luther' (2010) and Sunshine on Leith (2013). Coming up are the two follow up films to ‘Page Eight’.

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The Observer

Review by Mark Kermode

**** (4 stars)

Dexter Fletcher's Sunshine on Leith is a sprightly and unabashed adaptation of the Dundee Rep's much-loved stage show, spinning a Mamma Mia!-style narrative around the songs of the Proclaimers. Anyone familiar with the Brothers Reid's back catalogue will be able to figure out several key plot points in advance; someone will go to America in order to send back a letter; someone else will promise to walk 500 miles, and indeed 500 more; a central character called (Oh) Jean should very probably have been loved; there will be a boisterous proposal of marriage; and everyone will venture from misery to happiness today (aha, aha, aha). As always with such jukebox jamborees, part of the pleasure is in seeing how inventively the writers can string together a coherent story from a random selection of song titles and lyrics, and the cheeky creakiness of some of Stephen Greenhorn's more jarring key changes merely adds to the overall sense of stupid pleasure.

It helps that the Proclaimers' songbook is every bit as sturdily flexible as Benny and Björn's uber-text. We open in an armoured vehicle travelling through Afghanistan in which the assembled squaddies sing Sky Takes the Soul – a surprisingly effective overture ending inevitably in earth and clay. From here we move to Edinburgh where our battle-worn heroes (George MacKay and Kevin Guthrie) attempt to rebuild their lives and loves, picking up the pieces of relationships with friends and family in inevitably circumlocutious fashion.

Hearts are broken and mended, tears cried and dried, children lost and found, secrets and lies kept and revealed. It's easy to sneer at the level of cheesy contrivance with which the dots are joined, but actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher brings the same gutsy oomph to the proceedings that characterised his previous film, Wild Bill, giving this movie real down-to-earth charm.

The cast are game, too, leading on the front foot as they hop, skip and jump their way across picturesque cobbles and scenic streets, always ready to have a go. Some are accomplished musical theatre veterans (Jane Horrocks – voice of an angel), others not so (Peter Mullan – Tom Waits on meds), but everyone gives it their all. As for me, I shed a tear within the first 10 minutes, and spent the rest of the movie beaming like a gibbering, love-struck fool. By the time Horrocks launched into a hospital bedside rendition of the title song, I was quivering like a jelly on a plate.

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The View London

**** (4 stars)

Infectiously joyous feel-good musical that will leave you grinning from ear-to-ear, thanks to some terrific songs, an exuberant cast and note-perfect, crowd-pleasing direction from Dexter Fletcher. What's it all about? Directed by Dexter Fletcher and adapted from screenwriter Stephen Greenhorn's 2007 stage musical, Sunshine On Leith is a musical built around songs by The Proclaimers, just as Mama Mia! Made use of Abba songs. George McKay and Kevin Guthrie star as Davy and Ally, soldiers and best friends, who return from active duty in Afghanistan and attempt to find love in their home town of Edinburgh. Ally is, in fact, already in a relationship with Davy's sister Liz (Freya Mavor), who, in turn, sets Davy up with English nurse Yvonne (Antonia Thomas), but the path of true love doesn't run smooth for either of them, particularly when Liz announces her intention to take a job abroad and Yvonne suspects Davy would never leave his beloved home town for her. Meanwhile, Davy's happily married parents (Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks as Rab and Jean) have their own problems to deal with when Rab discovers he has a twenty-something daughter from a previous relationship. The Good As he proved with his wonderful debut feature Wild Bill, Dexter Fletcher has a genuine gift for crowd-pleasing fare and he gets the tone exactly right here, infusing every scene with joyous energy that is extremely infectious. It's no mean feat to pull off characters bursting into song mid-scene and making it seem natural (Mama Mia! didn't manage it, for example), but Fletcher practically has you singing along with the characters, such is their enthusiasm. The cast are terrific too (in another time, posters for this film would have borne the legend “Peter Mullan Sings!”), particularly McKay and Thomas, who have genuine chemistry together – moreover, all the cast have excellent singing voices, so there are no “Pierce Brosnan moments”, as it were. Mullan is excellent as Rab and his singing scene is truly something to behold, while Mavor and Guthrie are both likely to go on to bigger things as a result of their performances here. The Great The songs work surprisingly well with the story, so much so that if you didn't know better, you'd assume they were written for the movie. The film is also an unabashed love letter to Edinburgh, heightened by George Richmond's crisp cinematography that makes superb use of a laundry list of tourist-friendly locations - Arthur's Seat, the National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Mile are all present and correct. Worth seeing? Sunshine on Leith is a hugely enjoyable, genuinely uplifting musical that will have you seriously considering buying a Proclaimers CD as you bounce out of the cinema. Highly recommended.

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The Telegraph

****  (4  stars)  

Sunshine  on  Leith,  a  film  based  around  13  Proclaimers  songs,  will  give  you  tingles  of  happiness.    

Review by Robbie Collin

If aliens landed in the centre of Edinburgh tomorrow and asked us to tell them all we know of Scottish arts and culture, how on earth would we explain the Proclaimers?

Are Craig and Charlie Reid, the Leith-born twins with matching glasses and accents thicker than yesterday’s porridge, an accomplished folk-rock duo of three decades standing, or a novelty pop act? I’m never entirely sure: any karaoke veteran will appreciate the mesmeric hold I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) can have over a beery mob, and yet the duo’s lyrics ring with a blunt poetry that’s seldom acknowledged, let alone savoured.

Well, there is plenty of opportunity to savour it in Sunshine on Leith, a new musical film directed by Dexter Fletcher and built around 13 Proclaimers songs that leaves you with cask-strength, capillary-reddening tingles of happiness that run to the very tip of your nose.

The film, adapted from a stage show by Scottish playwright Stephen Greenhorn, stars George MacKay and Kevin Guthrie as Davy and Ally, two young squaddies who are newly returned to Edinburgh from Afghanistan, and who each find love and late nights waiting for them in the city’s port, Leith. Ally is coming back to a long-running relationship with Davy’s sister Liz (Freya Mavor), who in turn sets up Davy with her friend Yvonne (Antonia Thomas).

The Reid brothers themselves have an early cameo, stumbling out of a bar on Constitution Street while Davy and Ally strut past while crooning I’m on My Way – last heard in cinemas during 2001’s Shrek – but the face you are really waiting for is Peter Mullan’s, and more importantly, the noises that come out of it when it is bidden to sing.

Mullan plays Rab, Liz and Davy’s father, who serenades his wife (Jane Horrocks) with Oh Jean at their 25th wedding anniversary ceilidh. His voice sounds like Tom Waits singing through a mouthful of paperclips, and yet the sad twinkle in Mullan’s eye sells the performance completely. Here is a face that is as much of a craggy gift to a filmmaker as Edinburgh’s smoke-grey, stalagmitic skyline, and Dexter Fletcher, the director, never misses a chance to pan adoringly across either.

Not since Sylvain Chomet’s 2010 animation The Illusionist has a film been this straightforwardly in love with the Scottish capital. The film’s modest romances and heartbreaks play out on cobbled streets and in echoey tenement stairwells, with all twists carefully calibrated to the lyrics in a way that may remind some viewers of Mamma Mia. During I Met You, Davy sings the line “And then one night I went to Morningside and you were waiting” to Yvonne, who, sure enough, has a flat in Miss Jean Brodie’s former neighbourhood.

But the slotting together of songs and plot is often done with a spark of inspiration: Over and Done With becomes a raucous pub confessional, while Letter From America recognises the

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country’s ongoing struggle to keep its sons and daughters close: “You’re a Scot. We’ve always had to travel to get work,” Rab laments, when Liz moots the possibility of taking a hospital job in Miami.

Two years ago, in his first film Wild Bill, Fletcher proved that he is adept at finding an authentically cinematic, feel-good airiness in habitats more suited to soap operas – so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the whole thing ends with a large crowd roaring their way through I’m Gonna Be under blazing blue skies. But by then I had lost track of how many times Fletcher’s film had made me break into a grin that could span the Firth of Forth. Five hundred smiles would be a conservative guess.

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The Guardian

Review by Catherine Shoard

**** (4 stars)

Only whales can hear Peter Mullan sing. Or, at least, truly appreciate it. To be sitting in front of the Scot as he rasps out 'Oh Jean' to his conveniently-named missus on their 25th wedding anniversary, is to feel your bones shake, the cinema quiver and your eardrums desperately scramble to adjust. Mullan makes a noise almost off the register, a rich, sonic product of years of grizzly living and fearless acting that'd make Johnny Cash feel a little reedy.

In fact, knowing Peter Mullan was in this had thrown me off track. Not being a Proclaimers nut, I'd assumed that title of Dexter Fletcher's second film should be read with grim irony, probably superimposed over a shot of a bloated corpse surfacing downstream at day-break. Mullan is still most associated with raging turns in Neds and Tyrannosaur, while Fletcher's first film, Wild Bill, was a council estate coming of age tale in which bars are for knife fights and fathers for forgetting, if you can.

So this counts as quite the change of pace: a remorselessly rousing attempt to do for the Scottish pub rock twins what Mamma Mia! did for Abba or Tommy for The Who. The story is moulded to the setlist, the plot a jukebox algorithm. Two squaddies return from Afghanistan, head to the pub ('I'm On My Way') to forget their troubles ('It's Over and Done With'), hook up ('I Met You'), consider proposing ('Let's Get Married'), then deal with the pain of separation ('I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)') when one of them expresses an intention to emigrate to an inevitable destination ('Letter from America'). Meanwhile, Peter Mullan, the dad of one of the boys, finds his marriage to Jane Horrocks tested by ill-health and a secret daughter.

Full-throttle is only viable option for this, and Fletcher keeps his foot on the pedal throughout, save, perhaps, during one too many Horrocks sniffathons. The leads, in particular George MacKay as Mullan's son, are charming, perky yet palatable (no High School Musical here), and the overall ratio of grit to jazz hands is well-judged.

This is both a no-holds-barred knees-up and an unabashed ad for Edinburgh, with barely a note being sounded without a landmark hurrying into shot (Horrocks works at the National Gallery, whose exterior also gets a lot of airtime; climactic scenes are played out on Arthur's Seat and the Royal Mile). Even the hospital looks pretty swank. But it also doesn't quite airbrush the city, nor the experience of struggling to live there if you're broke or, like Paul Brannigan's fellow squaddie, disabled in the line of duty.

Originally a Dundee Rep production, Fletcher's decision to pick this up for the movie treatment was an inspired one, and the idea of premiering in Toronto, though it may have ruffled feathers in the Scottish capital, also a brainwave. For, in Canada, this counts almost as foreign language fare. Meat and potatoes for one nation is exotic veg for another. And over here, this is being lapped up accordingly.

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Total Film

**** (4 stars)

Following a near-fatal tour of duty, squaddies Davy (George MacKay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie) return to Edinburgh with a song in their hearts and rockets in their pockets.

On the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, Davy’s parents Rab and Jean (Peter Mullan – no menace, just soft centre – and Jane Horrocks) welcome them home; Liz (Freya Mavor) is thrilled boyfriend Ally’s safe and well, so fixes brother Davy up with pretty pal Yvonne (Antonia Thomas) to celebrate.

Yet into every life some rain must fall (even if, in this alternate Edinburgh, the heavens only open to make the cobbles gleam by moonlight): Rab’s past comes back to haunt him, and nurse Liz has her sights set far from the Firth of Forth...

Essentially, the narrative of this Proclaimers jukebox musical is just a stretched-out soap episode. The dialogue’s sparse (writer Stephen Greenhorn has deftly adapted his own stage production), but that’s all the better for putting the songs to the fore. They’re simple but soulful and require no previous knowledge to enjoy, with even the least well-known lodging in your brain like you’ve always known the refrains.

The arrangements – courtesy of Paul Englishby – make the most of The Proclaimers’ harmonies, adding in third and fourth parts to really make things sing.

But it’s the direction that’s essential here. Aged nine, Dexter Fletcher began his career under movie-musical maestro Alan Parker, as Baby Face in Bugsy Malone, and in this follow-up to feature debut Wild Bill he puts that summer of splurge guns to great effect.

There’s such spirit on show, such – dare we say it – glee, you’ll gladly forgive the odd not-so-smooth segue into song, wobbly accent or cheapo aerial shot.

You can probably predict what the last song will be, but the fabulous flashmob finale is something Parker himself would be proud of. Because like every good musical should, it leaves you elated.

Verdict:

Pitched perfectly between microbudget miracle Once and all-star Aegean romp Mamma Mia! What these songs lack in recognition they make up for in feelgood factor.